Wasabi (2001)

September 27, 2002

FILM REVIEW; From Paris to Tokyo, Mourning for a Long-Lost Love

By ELVIS MITCHELL

Published: September 27, 2002

Culinary purists have observed that much of what passes for the spicy Japanese condiment wasabi at American restaurants is an ersatz concoction of horseradish and green food coloring. The French-language action comedy ''Wasabi'' is just as artificial, pumped with horseradish to give it heat in lieu of actual spice.

''Wasabi,'' to be sure, boasts a high-concept plot. An ultraviolent Parisian detective, Hubert, who pines for a Japanese woman he loved nearly 20 years earlier, is summoned to Tokyo for her funeral, where he finds he's greeted by . . . the teenage daughter he never knew. There's more: she's a mod-punk brat who wants to hire a yakuza gang to kill the man she thinks abandoned her mother. The mom has left behind almost 200 million, not yen but dollars. And to top things off, she's made Hubert her heir and the executor of her will. Then, things really get complicated.

Fortunately, the cop is played by Jean Reno. He describes himself as ''the kind of guy who wouldn't hurt a fly.'' That's shortly before he punches a dangerous transvestite across a French disco as well as several other people, including the police chief's son, which leads to an enforced vacation and his trip to Japan.

But Mr. Besson's impishness does mock the ''Wasabi'' star a bit. Mr. Reno is so identified with a black T-shirt and worn black leather jacket that a line of these items bearing his name might as well be produced in France. When Hubert's girlfriend (the exquisite Carole Bouquet) sees him in something more formal -- like an article of clothing with buttons -- she gasps: ''I've never seen you in a shirt.''

Mr. Besson is fixated on archetype anyway; Hubert is so devoted a cop that he picks clues off his departed love's corpse while she's in the coffin. But it's too bad the writer and the director don't get some mileage out of Mr. Reno's ripe-for-satire melancholy.

(The last scene of the espionage tale ''Ronin'' almost gets a laugh when a resigned Mr. Reno, hands tucked into coat pockets, makes his lonely way down a Parisian back alley because it's hard to name a picture in which he hasn't done that. And Mr. Besson knows his way around Mr. Reno, since he introduced the actor to America with ''The Professional.'')

Instead, this script breaks a sweat in every scene, cranking out atrophied comic action scenes, brawls in which Hubert leaves a trail of molars and bloody puddles in his impulsive wake.

''Wasabi,'' which opens today in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, is trying to parody a genre that's already a joke in the United States. The movie is the equivalent of French hip-hop, which also seems to play on a 10-year delay.

Whatever charm ''Wasabi'' has comes from its energetic silliness, which is embodied in Ryoko Hirosue, who plays Hubert's newfound going-on-20-year-old daughter, Yumi. (And, yes, there is a plot point related to her age, since this spare movie doesn't produce a single detail that it doesn't plan to exploit.)

''I adapt quickly, but let me think about this,'' Hubert says when assaulted with a new daughter and all of the culture clashes. In Japan he hooks up with Momo (Michel Muller), his old crime-fighting partner-in-mayhem. Momo, who produces Western-style ordnance for Hubert and seems to own the only pristine left-hand-drive CitroÃ«n Se in Japan, reminisces on their days in the spy business together. ''Remember the time we blew up an arms dump by mistake,'' he sighs.

Mr. Muller's baked-potato face does so much work for him that he doesn't have to oversell his puckish twerpiness as hard as he does. His overacting fits in with a picture that spells out everything in italics. It's a fish-out-of-water picture about a fish who seems uncomfortable even in the Seine.

But if you're seeing ''Wasabi'' in Los Angeles, the real fun will come afterward in the theater lobbies. It's there where you'll probably overhear Harrison Ford's people battling to outbid Nicolas Cage's for the American remake rights.

''Wasabi'' is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian) for loud and standard comic book shootouts and fistfights with a soupÃ§on of sexuality.